NEW FEATURE: Walk down memory lane

This NEW FEATURE is very much like "blog padding" or "Retroactive Blogging About Things I Ate", except that this is not a comprehensive list of what I ate. This happened many years ago in the forgotten ages of the world, obscured by the mists of time, and thus I am having trouble remembering what I had for breakfast that day.

So back when I was in high school, I got invited to a potluck at a friend's friend's type of churchy event. Potlucks are like a fairyland of endless bliss for high school boys because while enshrouded in the protective veil of awkward hormonal frustration a male body becomes capable of consuming TEN TIMES IT'S VOLUME IN FOOD. Potlucks are like a free all-you-can-eat buffet, because your entry fee is created using food you stole from your parents.

I went over to Bean's house with T-Dogg to prepare my potluck entry, because Bean had a large enough vessel for my contribution - 12 packets of Top Ramen. Yes, I take my Worst Potluck Contributor EVER title very seriously. Also, these were the halcyon days of 12/1$ ramen, so I basically stole $1 from my parents in order to tarnish their name by being That Guy who shows up to a potluck with a bucket of ramen. Whilst engaged in the preparation of our meals, the boys and I struck up a classic match of "Props", which is essentially paying each other to do things with "props" because none of us had any money. My "Props" challenge was to eat two entire packets of crushed red pepper in one gulp. I WON THE PROPS!

About a minute later, my mouth and lips were burning so bad that I ran over and stuck my head under Bean's running sink, but gulping cool water did not douse the flames as I had hoped. Between fits of laughter at my expense, Bean graciously suggested that I attempt to neutralize the acid with a base, and gave me a half-gallon of milk. I drank THE ENTIRE CARTON, which did kind of help a little, but the pain crept back when it was gone. We then determined that perhaps cheese was a more effective base delivery method, so I ate half of a two pound brick of cheese (or one pound of cheese, for the math inclined). Then I ate some celery, because Bean was running out of food. The celery did not help either.

Well, it was time to go to the potluck, so we packed up our contributions (12 packets of top ramen, spaghetti with plain tomato sauce, and whatever it was that T-Dogg dug out of his parent's house) and headed out. My mouth still hurt, but my lips were finally numb, and I had stopped sweating, so things were looking up until I realized that I had burned my tastebuds so bad that I actually couldn't really taste anything. Also, the water, half gallon of milk, and one pound of cheese had finally registered, so I was now unbelievably full. As we drove to the potluck, I was carrying my pot of ramen between my legs for some reason, and every time we hit a bump, some ramen juice would splash out and burn my crotch.

We got to the potluck and I was stuffed, couldn't taste anything, and had a giant steaming spot of broth on my crotch. WORST POTLUCK EVER. Although I DID, as previously alluded to, win the Worst Potluck Contributor EVER award, barely beating out the guy who brought 20 hamburgers from McDonalds (it was $.25 hamburger day, limit 20).

Ah, memories.